is extraordinary abilities soon brought him into
notice at the Court. The Chigi family, the Bishop of Salamanca, and the
Pope himself employed him to make various jewels, ornaments, and services
of plate. In consequence of a dream in which his father appeared and
warned him not to neglect music, under pain of the paternal malediction,
he accepted a post in the Papal band. The old bugbear of flute-playing
followed him until his father's death, and then we hear no more of it. The
history of this portion of his life is among the most entertaining
passages of his biography. Drawing the Roman ruins, shooting pigeons,
scouring the Campagna on a pony like a shaggy bear, fighting duels,
prosecuting love-affairs, defending his shop against robbers, skirmishing
with Moorish pirates on the shore by Cerveterra, stabbing, falling ill of
the plague and the French sickness--these adventures diversify the account
he gives of masterpieces in gold and silver ware. The literary and
artistic society of Rome at this period was very brilliant. Painters,
sculptors, and goldsmiths mixed with scholars and poets, passing their
time alternately in the palaces of dukes and cardinals and in the lodgings
of gay women. Bohemianism of the wildest type was combined with the
manners of the great world. A little incident described at some length by
Cellini brings this varied life before us. There was a club of artists,
including Giulio Romano and other pupils of Raphael, who met twice a week
to sup together and to spend the evening in conversation, with music and
the recitation of sonnets. Each member of this company brought with him a
lady. Cellini, on one occasion, not being provided for the moment with an
_innamorata_, dressed up a beautiful Spanish youth called Diego as a
woman, and took him to the supper. The ensuing scene is described in the
most vivid manner. We see before us the band of painters and poets, the
women in their bright costumes, the table adorned with flowers and fruit,
and, as a background to the whole picture, a trellis of jasmines with dark
foliage and starry blossoms. Diego, called Pomona, with regard doubtless
to his dark and ruddy beauty, is unanimously proclaimed the fairest of the
fair. Then a discovery of his sex is made; and the adventure leads, as
usual in the doings of Cellini, to daggers, midnight ambushes, and
vendettas that only end with bloodshed.

An episode of this sort may serve as the occasion for observing that the